THE CORNERSTONE DIFFERENCE
In a market that has markedly shifted over the last few years towards large, generalist ERP suites and mixed delivery models, it has become quite clear that Cornerstone OnDemand is truly different. Different by design. Different by delivery.
Cornerstone OnDemand is the leading best-of-breed, organically grown Talent Management solution on the market today - not a distant ancestor of a clunky ERP system that was built to do something other than manage, measure and retain your people. Since 1999, Cornerstone’s software has been delivered via the cloud and has impacted end-users throughout the
employee lifecycle.
The lumbering ERP companies have taken to offering talent management solutions that have been cobbled together from mergers and acquisitions of the last few years. They are
“reconciling their software portfolios” and patching it all together with ‘middleware’ and ‘custom integrations’. Some of us believe that these labels are really just cosmetics that give the
appearance of modernization and the look of a true cloud application. Do not be fooled.
Executives and HR technology managers will learn from this whitepaper what the difference and benefits between having a truly organic and unified suite of talent management applications is versus a costly integrated piece-by-pieced system that is just labeled ‘cloud’.
INTRODUCTION
Lots of analysts speculate that this market will become dominated by the ERP providers.
Not true. I firmly believe this market is far too big and moving far too fast for the ERP providers to dominate. Yes, we all want our talent management tools integrated into our other core HR systems - but the “space” is moving too fast for ERP vendors to keep up.
Not only are there 200+ LMS vendors today, but we predict an explosion of new tools for social recruiting, sourcing, analytics, real-time engagement and feedback, and social recognition. These HR software categories will all eventually “converge” into the talent management system, keeping the market exciting and alive.
JOSH BERSIN
THE STATE OF THE TALENT MANAGEMENT INDUSTRY
Moving to the Cloud
Traditionally, enterprise software has been installed and run on servers on the physical premises of the buyer. That was the way that software was bought and sold in the 1980s and 1990s, for the most part. However in recent years, companies worldwide have been switching to cloud-based software. This is especially true in the talent management and HR technology industry, in which a majority of companies have switched to using software-as-a-service (SaaS) or some combination of SaaS and on-premise solutions. This growing demand for cloud solutions is putting pressure on software vendors to not only innovate their products faster, but also to switch their business and deployment models. As a result, in a rush to add new capabilities to their solutions, many vendors have scrambled to acquire new technologies rather than take the time to develop these in-house. And sometimes that approach makes sense, but it almost always comes at a price.
Racing to Consolidate
This vendor race to add new features and solutions to existing product portfolios has led to massive consolidation in the HR technology market in the past few years. The consolidation of the industry has had profound implications on the usability and flexibility of the products vendors offer. Acquired applications are often only lightly integrated into the vendor’s legacy applications.
After all, it is very challenging to take an acquired company and successfully and elegantly merge both its product set and existing corporate culture into an existing organization.
The problem is that buyers are too often left with disparate user experiences and data models that do not provide easy access to needed information, making it difficult to roll out new applications and programs consistently across the entire organization. Integrating software is hard work and sometimes it simply doesn’t work. Too often the merged product presents the buyer with inconsistent user interfaces and reporting functionalities, and generates challenges to user adoption.
40
%of companies are only considering cloud-based
solutions for their new HRMS
UNIFIED MATTERS:
THE CORNERSTONE DIFFERENCE
One Comprehensive Suite
If integrating two software solutions under the same platform is a difficult process, you can imagine that patching together a collection of old and new software tools, offered via old and new delivery models (hosted, private cloud, hybrid cloud, SaaS, behind-the-firewall, etc.) is downright scary. And not just for the company trying to do it – the buyer of such systems faces a range of challenges too. Often times, even after the solutions have been integrated (what the big software companies sometimes refer to as “portfolio reconciliation” – you don’t want to be part of that, do you?), the final product is composed of a hodgepodge of different user interfaces spread out in separate databases, negatively affecting the end-user experience and limiting both the functionality and flexibility of the product. It’s just the nature of the beast. You can’t cram it all together and expect it to be pretty.
Cornerstone provides a completely different way of thinking about this. Ours is a unified suite that eliminates costly upgrades, complex hybrid delivery models, and messy integrations.
Cornerstone is not a Frankenstein patchwork of old software systems; it’s simply one
comprehensive talent management system delivery only one way, via the Cloud. It provides a consistent user interface with single sign-on that does not require users to switch between multiple systems, enabling organizations to manage the full employee lifecycle in one reliable technology and gain a global view into the competencies and skills of their talent.
All within a single platform, users can perform key employee management functions including recruiting, training and development, performance management, succession management, compensation, and workforce collaboration. Only such a fully unified platform can deliver consistent processes, visibility, greater usability, and supply a holistic view of the organization.
Scary Legacy Software Vendor Term:
“portfolio reconciliation”
(you don’t want to be part of that, do you?)
One Consistent User Interface
Integrated solutions often have disparate user interfaces that change from module to module.
Major disconnects between the interfaces for different devices and applications require users to learn new ways to interact with the product as they switch from one application to another. Users tend to apply rules they learn elsewhere; therefore, with inconsistent interfaces, users can easily get confused as to how to complete certain functions.
Cornerstone addresses these adoption challenges with a single, consistent user interface.
If you’re doing one thing in performance management, doing a similar thing in the learning management system will seem awfully familiar. Creating consistency in layout and design
facilitates efficiency as users feel more comfortable and are able to transfer knowledge and skills learned from one part of the product to other parts. For end users, a consistent interface not only offers a major productivity boost, but also reduces the learning curve and amount of training needed for employees to use the product effectively.
One Upgrade and Maintenance Path
Generally, integration forges a dependency between applications, producing a rigid architecture that is difficult to modify and maintain.
Applications built on different platforms require multiple upgrade and maintenance paths, which can have profound implications for the flexibility and scalability of the product. Within an integrated system, changes and upgrades made in one application often require modifications to the other applications.
With Cornerstone, all customers are all on one release and one code base. This singularity allows Cornerstone to move as fast as business and technological innovations occur, which allows organizations to take advantage of new features much faster than the traditional upgrade process – increasing their business agility and scalability. As other talent management vendors are burdened with complicated integrations and rush to catch up with migration paths and hybrid approaches, Cornerstone continues to move forward and innovate.
One Data Model
While it is important for data to flow seamlessly from application to application, often times with acquired technology the data is housed in separate databases – fragmenting and segregating valuable enterprise data into different cloud and data silos. Without integration, organizations are forced to manually enter data into multiple applications – a process that is both ineffective and error-prone. As a result, managers are left without the visibility, agility and flexibility they need to make critical business decisions.
With Cornerstone, all customers are all on
one release one code baseand
Cornerstone provides reporting and analytics all in one place, delivering a comprehensive view into the whole talent picture and enabling managers to access relevant workforce insights when and where they need it. With its unified platform, Cornerstone eliminates the need for complex data integrations between applications. Data does not reside in an array of different databases and systems, so all data is seamlessly shared between the different modules. Reports are not only consistent, easy to build, and simple to use, but also available through any access point throughout the suite.
With all employee data unified in one platform and database, organizations have visibility into all aspects of their workforce, enabling them to advance from just reporting numbers to analyzing the data and proving value back to the business. Having data an organization needs at the point of decision reduces administrative time, allowing organizations to make faster and more informed business decisions.
Pure SaaS
As more and more organizations embrace cloud computing, SaaS has emerged as the preferred model for technology today. Vendors who have made their name selling on-premise software are now looking to add SaaS solutions to their portfolio.
However, this growing use of SaaS and other cloud services leads to new integration challenges as vendors have to integrate these new SaaS solutions to their existing on-premise solutions.
Managing applications running both on-premise and in the cloud is not easy. Without an effective integration strategy, SaaS applications can create inefficiencies rather than make business processes more effective.
Cornerstone was developed in the cloud since day one. Its pure SaaS architecture eliminates the need for complicated integrations and hybrid solutions, offering several advantages over traditional enterprise applications. Cloud computing removes the need for organizations to deploy large infrastructure and to make upfront commitment of resources. This not only helps to reduce IT costs, but also mitigates risk. SaaS applications are also low maintenance as it takes minimal effort to execute and deploy and upgrades and maintenance are transparently and automatically handled by the vendor.
Cornerstone was developed
in the cloud
since
day one
CASE IN POINT:
HOW CORNERSTONE COMPARES
Hardware and software were not engineered to work together. There are complex issues with customizations, service packs, and version control. Not all systems are created equal or modern enough to address modern end-users. Disperse software and hardware shouldn’t be lumped together with expensive database technologies.
HR teams should have the purchasing power to know exactly what their employees need to succeed.
One comprehensive system that acts like one product is the very best way to deliver and measure the impact of your talent management technology on the workforce. With four product releases a year, high-availability up-time, a secure data model, Cornerstone’s unified model makes sense.
An integrated system is composed of multiple components that must be carefully fitted together to achieve the required functionality.
This implies running many different servers and databases alongside some middleware that ties the whole thing together.
• Custom Coding
• Multi Delivery Models
• Versioning
• Some Customization, Integration Projects A unified system acts as ‘one’ seamless
system that shares data, object models, people information and actions across multiple applications/modules. This implies running ‘one’ program that is experienced wholly from one interface.
• One Object Model
• True Multi-Tenancy
• One Version
• Highly Configurable, Scalable
Integrated Unified
Unified Fragmented
Secure Complex
4 Releases Many Releases
SAP and Oracle
Cornerstone OnDemand
Unified Talent Management in Action: Kelly Services Case Study
Kelly Services is a leader in the temporary staffing industry, providing more than 530,000 skilled temporary workers for employers around the world. Previously, Kelly Services used 18 different Human Resource Information Systems (HRIS). When the company decided to replace its outdated, on-premise Learning Management System and establish a new talent management organization, its HR team realized it needed to transition from siloed learning and HR processes to a unified talent management strategy.
The company employs 700,000 employees; serves 150,000 customers; and operates 2,300 offices in 26 countries. To better engage and empower both its own workforce and those of the organization that it serves, Kelly Services sought a solution that had global capabilities, full suite functionality, and improved the end user experience. Cornerstone’s Software-as-a-Service model appealed to Kelly because of the cost savings and speed on implementation.
With Cornerstone, Kelly Services has been able to better enable and empower its employees with its unified talent management strategy. The recruiting and onboarding modules have helped the company increase retention and productivity among new hires – decreasing turnover from 15 percent to 3 percent over a two pilot program in a six-month period. Kelly’s online learning center better enables employees by helping them identify relevant courses and action steps for further development. Cornerstone Performance has given the company the infrastructure and processes it needed to align company goals with employees’ career development needs. And the company has increased its leadership pipeline by building the right bench strength with the help of
Cornerstone Succession. All of these things provide direct value to the business; within 11 months of deployment, the company is on track to recoup costs in year one.
About Cornerstone OnDemand
Cornerstone OnDemand is a leader in cloud-based applications for talent management. The company’s solutions help organizations recruit, train, manage and engage their employees, empowering their people and increasing workforce productivity. Based in Santa Monica, California, the company’s solutions are used by over 1,800 clients worldwide, spanning more than 15.5 million users across 191 countries and 42 languages.
To learn more about Cornerstone, visit csod.com, twitter.com/CornerstoneInc and facebook.com/CSODcommunity
